Karin Klein, Bloomberg Beta

Since Bloomberg Beta, a $75 million tech fund, launched in June, Karin Klein has invested in five companies, including Codecademy and Nodejitsu.

Before joining Bloomberg Beta, Karin was a VC at Softbank where she worked closely with portfolio companies. Karin was also a member of the board of Buddy Media prior to its acquisition by Salesforce.

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Cindy Gallop, MakeLoveNotPorn

Cindy Gallop, founder of MakeLoveNotPorn
Wikimedia, CC.

Founder, MakeLoveNotPorn

Cindy Gallop launched MakeLoveNotPorn.com back in 2009 to highlight the difference between porn and real sex and, ultimately, the impact that technology has had on our sex lives.

Because of the extraordinary response that site received, Gallop launched MakeLoveNotPorn.tv this year, to continue her mission to socialize real world sex and make it socially acceptable and shareable as anything else we share on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram.

[Full disclosure: Ryan is also a co-founder and chairman of Business Insider.]

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Nicole Glaros, TechStars

Nicole Glaros, managing director of TechStars

Managing Director, TechStars

Nicole Glaros, the new managing director of TechStars NYC, was tasked with the job of filling Dave Tisch's shoes, who stepped down from the role last August. She also had to take over the program when TechStars fired its managing director, Eugene Chung, two weeks before Demo Day.

Glaros previously managed TechStars Boulder, but was pulled in to serve as interim managing director.

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Tanya Menendez, Maker's Row

Tanya Menendez
LinkedIn

Co-founder, Maker's Row

Maker's Row is an online marketplace that connects manufacturers with product-based businesses of all sizes. It's essentially a matchmaker for fashion designers and manufactures.

Nitasha Tiku, Gawker/Valleywag

While Sam Biddle is a dose of snark Silicon Valley sometimes needs, Nitasha Tiku is the reporting genius behind Gawker's Valleywag. When Valleywag gets a scoop, Tiku is often behind it.

Formerly of Inc. and Betabeat, Tiku broke the news about the many millions Snapchat's founders took off the table. She was first to report Path's layoffs too. She also calls out startups that are lacking diversity.

Now, Evans leads the new "Radical Innovation" team at Rent the Runway.

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Rachel Haot, New York City

NYC Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment

Chief Digital Officer; Mayor, New York City

Rachel Haot is the country's first chief digital officer. She's responsible for working alongside NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to bolster the city's startup ecosystem and modernize old infrastructure, like phone booths.

Since 2011, Haot has increased the number of media channels the government uses to interact with its constituents. Under Haot and Bloomberg's leadership, New York City has started campaigns to reinvent payphones and launched an initiative to install at least 77 new touchscreen kiosks in subway stations throughout its five boroughs.

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Anastasia Leng, Hatch

Hatch co-founders Anastasia Leng and Ryan Hayward
Hatch

Co-founders, Hatch

Before starting Hatch, formerly known as Makeably, both Anastasia Leng and Ryan Hayward worked at Google.

"Google's a phenomenal company," Leng previously told Business Insider. "But I just needed to do this."

Hatch aims to help makers utilize their underlying skill sets to further expand their product offerings and range, while eliminating some of the risk. At the same time, it's enables everyday people to personalize and purchase one-of-a-kind items.

Just this month, Hatch unveiled interactive hotspots to assist in the customization and personalization process.

Since May, Hatch has grown 30% month over month in new makers and products. It has also doubled its user base.

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Soraya Darabi, Zady

Co-CEO of Zady, Soraya Darabi
Soraya Darabi

Co-CEO, Zady

After finding success with Foodspotting, the food startup that sold to OpenTable for $10 million, Soraya Darabi pulled back the curtains on her latest venture.

That's likely thanks to Taylor's chops in both education and sales, and Retelle's skills with education policy. Retelle is the former senior director of education policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Just last month, Taylor and Retelle secured a $500,000 investment from prolific investor Mark Cuban.

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Alexandra Chong, Lulu

Lulu founder Alexandra Chong
LuLu

Founder, Lulu

Lulu lets women anonymously rate men they know. Since launching its app in February, Lulu has grown to more than 1 million users. One in four college women in the United States have Lulu downloaded on their phones, according to Chong.

Glynnis MacNicol and Rachel Sklar, TheLi.st

Rachel Sklar and Glynnis MacNicol founded TheLi.st, a visibility platform committed to helping awesome women help other awesome women.

Both Sklar and MacNicol are digital media veterans and write a thrice-weekly newsletter that highlights the different accomplishments, ventures, and projects of connected women. TheLi.st also hosts panels, seminars, meet ups, and conferences.

Disclosure: Glynnis MacNicol previously worked as a media editor at Business Insider.

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Amanda Peyton, Grand St.

Amanda Peyton

Co-founders, Grand St.

Grand St. launched this year to give people access to some of the coolest gadgets. The boutique offers new products to members every other day. But since it's a flash sales site, you have to act fast.

Reshma Saujani and Kristen Titus, Girls Who Code

Reshma Saujani founded the highly influential high school program, Girls Who Code. Saujani launched Girls Who Code last summer as an eight-week intensive program where high school women learn the basics of Ruby, HTML, Java, and more.

Since then, Saujani and Kristen Titus have been working to close the gender gap in engineering and increase the number of women involved with software engineering.

Shana Fisher, High Line Venture Partners

Shana Fisher, angel investor
Shana Fisher

Angel Investor, High Line Venture Partners

Ask male investors who they idolize and they'll tell you Shana Fisher.

Fisher is a smart investors who has a reputation for being able to spot hot new startups and Internet trends early on. Fisher led the angel round in 3D printing startup MakerBot, which sold in June to fellow 3D printing company Stratasys in a deal worth roughly $403 million. She was also one of the first Pinterest investors.

High Line VP also invested in Vine, the video-sharing app that sold to Twitter last October.